Maybe it\'s really time to do something about it: 0.02 usd/source word - any ideas?

On 2002-03-18 20:57, AbacusTrans wrote:

Quite!



As for the agency you mention, there is another factor to be considered. Low-paying agencies are more likely to default on payment than others (it is a \"built-in feature\", as it were). So, these agencies posting here again and again, for the same language pairs and subject matters, are doing so because they probably never manage to hang on to their \"new recruits\". This could have a number of reasons (all of which apply to low-paying agencies): lousy project managers who don\'t know how to treat translators properly; translator gets no support; the agency may try to lower the abysmal rate even further once the job has been assigned to a \"poor sucker\"; and, finally, the agency does not pay at all!



I see this sort of thing almost every day. There is also another agency (the one with the \"perfect\" name ), and they keep posting jobs for the same languages and subjects day in and day out. That agency, and I know that from many different sources, has a bad payment record (they are denying it now; they have even sent out their minions to spread the word on how reliable and professional they are), and their expectations are completely unrealistic.





I\'d just like to back Werner up on this: working in conferences I came across a boss who had done a study on the matter, and it\'s a vicious cycle. A lot of people, including translators, get into translation from elsewhere, and those who NEVER became translators are into it for purely economic reasons. So they run it like any other business, with \"wholesale\" and \"retail\" sections, commercial agents, distributors, and all sorts of margins. They\'re easy to spot: these are the outsourcers who call you up and say, \"I have 6,000 words for tomorrow, can you do it?\"



On the client end, they operate like photocopying centres: 10% discounts for over 100 pages, up to 35% for 500. And the client begins to get the wrong idea. \"1,000 pages for next week? No problem.\" No professional in his sane mind takes them, and they end up with the greenhorns. The week ends, they can\'t deliver, the client walks off in a huff, and what was once a \"very feasible business plan\" (for an assembly line) has to fold up in receivership. And the translators trapped inside that system can\'t do anything about it.



If it\'s any comfort to you guys, we, not they, are the mainstays in the business, regardless of whatever client-catching network apparatus they may put behind us. When they fold up, we may be scathed, but our fiscal licenses remain valid. Experience has shown me that such outfits do not last for more than 3 years, but no problem - I\'ll live. ▲ Collapse

On 2002-04-28 16:56, nermina wrote:

everybody here takes pride in their work, most of them rightfully so. but if there is a hungry translator, say living in bosnia, where i come from, you, others, should not be mad at either the outsourcer or translator. those big international institutions that come to bosnia and other post-war or post-communist countries get their translations from locals for $5 per page, and to locals that is a lot of money. i now live in the u.s. and it is a different story. i can afford to decline a low-paying offer. but i also remember how happy i was i could do something for $100 or more for a couple of hours\' work. i remember i would work days and nights to bring some money to my family who were not as fortunate to speak and write a foreign language fluently. so please let them choose and be chosen and be grateful for what we have. it might just fit their standards. so far, i\'ve been happy with offers from proz and never had my u.s. rates lowered. and these are not the rates i charged back in bosnia, lol! thanks to proz, i\'ve got a handful of repeat customers, and that\'s more than satisfactory for me. henry and the crew, thanks for building this beautiful site!





No one, I think, is mad at translators located in Bosnia and other \"cheap\" countries. Personally, I am mad at certain agencies that try to take advantage of our colleagues in such countries.



Example:



Agency XYZ (located in, say, New York City) pays its American, Canadian and even European translators US$0.12 per word. But when they send a translation to a translator in Argentina, Bosnia, etc., they expect him/her to do the same job for only 2 or 3 cents. And this is outrageous! For this reason, some of us have called on translators in \"cheap\" countries to become more assertive when dealing with international clients (trust me, I fully understand that translators in Bosnia, for example, cannot charge Western rates to local clients).





[ This Message was edited by: on 2002-04-29 18:48 ] ▲ Collapse